Help for 23

I miss old good times too... Hope to breath again that great atmosphere that was peculiar to 23!

Hi guys,

Don't know if I would call it a crisis, but you're absolutely right that time devoted to 23 Photo Sharing is limited. This isn't because we don't love our photo sharing child and don't want to keep the direct wire open to your guys -- but to be quite honest this is a matter of practicality: In 2010, for every dollar paid for 23 Plus subscriptions, we had $127 of revenue from 23 Video. That's a pretty big split in a company with eight people and eight monthly pay checks (and the ratio has grown above 1:150 in the first months of 2011).

Now, I don't agree that communication is lost. We do whatever we can to react and fix bugs and other requests as quickly as possible; and I kinda hope you guys would agree with me on that one.

Forward-looking development is being neglected, and that's a shame. It's usually easy to find a few hours to fix small issues as they pop up, but keeping up the vision and roadmap is tough. What can we do as a community to externalize the product vision for what we want to do with 23? Or rather, what should we build?

Steffen,

Now that looks very direct wire to me. I am tempted to feel sorry for the tone of my initial post, but all I can say is I was very sincere when I wrote it. And I was dying to see some response from you guys.

About 23 video, I'm glad to hear you guys are doing well in that front. It sufficiently explains why development has been slow around here, though it doesn't quite provide a solution for the conundrum.

As for your your thoughts, I love how bold and open-ended they are. I like the possibilities behind all of them, and I think that 1 and 3 should be implemented as soon as possible, along with 2 as soon as we/you figure the best way to do it.

It's a pity that some of our most active and interested users have already left 23 *because* of the lack of development (including a number of the posters from the original thread), so we can't call them back into discussion or participation. But some of us remain, and our passion remain as real as yours. I recognize the openness of the 23 stand is a rare thing; we should definitely dream this thing together.

I never had the impression the team was unreachable. When there's a problem, someone from the team (usually Steffen…) has always replied in time and tried really hard to fix it. But there are different time zones and they need sleep too, so it might takes some hours before an answer arrives.

About #1: Maybe distinguish "Team 23" and "23 Community", with Team 23 being the employees running the systems and 23 Community being that - community members that take care of some of the front-end social-net features?

About #2: The missing limit is the most interesting part of getting a plus membership. But you could go with something like this: 300 images for the start, like it currently is. After they're used up, 30 images a month for 3 months. Then 60 or 90 images a month for half a year. After one year you get 150 or maybe even 300 images a month to upload. Plus will give you unlimited like now.

About #3: Can't offer much, maybe a few small ideas from my notes:
Possibly introduce some kind of rating system for images. The range would be like from -5 to +5 with 0 being ok, -5 awful and +5 superb. You can rate everyone else's images but not your own (because if you don't like them you wouldn't have uploaded them, right?) Individual ratings are invisible to the uploader, but the combined score is public (if the images is public). You can see and change your own rating at any time. Images in a group get two ratings: One from everyone and one only calculated from the ratings of the members of this group, who have posted a least one image in this group. Favorited would remain separate from this.
Another idea are challenges or competitions (yes, I know, I stole this one). Five competitions a year, starting in the odd-numbered months and running for six weeks for entries and following two weeks for closing ratings. The winning image will be used on the 23 homepage for the following two months, while the next challenge is running. Challenges are themed like "toys", "transportation, but no cars", "truly old (unedited)" or smth alike. November and december a theme-free competition runs. The images have to be newly uploaded for the competitions, you can't enter already uploaded ones. Only if you enter an image yourself you're allowed to rate other participants images, but everyone can comment.
Also, it would be nice to have a feature to "link" from an image to another one, like an edited version (not necessarily done by the same user) without having to do that via the description text.

About #5: It has probably the same problem as some other parts of 23: Editing texts in a browser is cumbersome. Having the ability to use an external editor and upload a plain text file with 23-image links inside as a story would be much easier and more comfortable. And having a preview feature, not only for stories but any other text entry box as well. Editing is fine, but in the meantime a crawler might have already grabbed it.

Btw, there's something most people probably don't even know: 23 is unique in that it's one of the very few sites able to grok and correctly serve 16bit images (if you upload them as png). That's very nice and deserves to be emphasized, just like some other little-know feature e.g. geo-tagging or drag&drop upload (discovered this one by accident).

ps: If you upload images, you can choose an album to add them too, but not a group. You have to do this manually later one, either image by image or via the add photos to group function, which are both not very user-friendly if it's a large bunch of images. Would be nice to have this in the uploader, so you can let it run over night.

We have to think about some way to stimulate people to use 23 to create something good. Competitions, as suggested by nachbarnebenan, can be a good way to achieve this goal; a visual blog that collects goodies from 23 users can help. We can imagine a global system of stats and charts (e.g weekly, monthly, by various parameters), trying to find right methods to promote good photography and not just picture from holidays parties and so on. In few words I think that 23 should be a place where photography lovers, not only pro's, can talk and exchange their feelings. I'm here since a very long time and, even if I'm not to active as a publisher, I check my subscriptions every day, I visit forum and I try to contribute when possible. I used to love this place and I'll continue. I will be happy to help 23 in this new adventure.

> "I'd be a bit worried about introducing too many rating scheme and ways to earn points"

Sorry, maybe I expressed myself wrongly. Ok, I'll try again: At the moment the only indication you have about how other people like your images are if they mark them as favorites. The number of views are no big help, because it doesn't tell you how much viewers liked the image. So I suggested a more fine-grained scale in addition to favorites. It's not about earning points or so, but a help in measuring your images impact on others.

> "[…]making 23 into a playground yet again."

Not sure, if this does make much sense: Maybe introduce something like variants for images. Hopefully I can explain it: Someone uploads an image, then another user edits it and uploads a different version (changed whitebalance, cloned something out etc). This version is then attached to the original image (if the uploader allowed it) as a variant, visible as a small tab at the top or down. Clicking it switching to that version in-place.
This way it would be much easier than linking to your version in the comments, and certainly much more fun. It could be limited to images posted to a group with this feature activated or so. There one of the variants could even be selected randomly upon viewing an image.

Steffen when you refer to "front page" you mean "just in" page or what? I'm asking to figure how this page could be. By the way, I like this idea and I think that it should be on top of 23 "to do" list.
When I say charts and ratings I mean that could be useful to have a page or something else where pictures uploaded can be promoted to other users. For example, now on 23 I see only pictures from my subscriptions and sometimes I discover a new user thanks to the popular stuff box at the bottom of the page, note that this box is smaller for non plus user. We don't need to invent new ways of earning point, just a system to expose better what we have, to wider the audience for our pictures.

The Just In page could be this new front page when you're logged in, 'cos if you're logged in www.23hq.com shows the dashboard.

I don't like competing, so I hope the emphasis does not move in that direction, but remains on sharing. I have a lot of email subscriptions. I enjoy looking at others' photos and sometimes commenting on them, and of course I appreciate the comments I get. Like others, I discover new users from the front page -- mainly from "what's popular now." Anything we can do to enhance the front page in order to feature new and interesting photos would be an improvement. Perhaps we could have "Team 23" members promote such photos to the front page for a short span of time.

Any inspiration for who's doing flow photo blogging well -- both in terms of curating and design?

Hey Steffen, I'm trying to design a new homepage model for 23 with Inkscape. I'm just curious about 23 logo font, is it something free that I can reproduce?

I'm here since 2005, so that qualifies me as an old timer, I suppose.

I like the idea of a collective photoblog as a front page.

I like the idea of re-knitting together a community around the 23 site. Probably some sort of "competition" would be welcome -- but I'm thinking more of something like setting a theme for people to create and submit their images -- than an "OK you win" thing. An example I like is "Words to shhot by": http://wordstoshootby.blogspot.com/

A feature I'd love, but I don't know if it's even remotely feasible: interconnection with other communities. I showcase some of my images on Flickr too, and I'd like to have comments, links, likes and so on shared between the two worlds.
This is connected to another theme, which I believe could be of some importance: I feel there is a community aesthetic here on 23 -- and that it IS different from that of Flickr and of other photo sharing sites. On one side it would be good to promote this identity (and the photoblog on the front page is a good tool), on the other it would be interesting to compare it with others.

On another ground: I understand that it makes no economical sense to develop new features on the photo sharing site, when the real business is elsewhere and the forces are limited. But I wonder if it would be feasible to "open source" at least a part of the code, and to promote some community development.

(Last and least, a wishlist: 1. large, full screen slideshows; 2. entirely RSS customizable badges and web presentations)

P. S.: what about having stats on the photos?

2. entirely RSS customizable badges and web presentations

Oops, that was a typo. I meant "entirely CSS customizable badges and web presentations" -- sorry.

> And make sure people can downvote photos.

Definitely a + from me for this one.
It would also make sense to distinguish between rating and voting:
Rating is something you globally allow for your (public) photos, for which everyone else can give positive or negative feedback (the scale still needs to be agreed on) anonymously.
Voting is for photos in groups (I suppose challenges/competitions will be handled as special groups internally) which have this feature activated and works exactly the same way, but is independent of rating and not anonymous.
Explanation: Let's say a competition has the topic of "flowers in summer". You post a photo of a watering can. Everyone likes it, because it is perfectly composed, has nice contrast and colors etc. and you get a a lot of good ratings and comments, but only negative votes because it is off-topic and doesn't fit. The same would be true the other way around: If the topic is "derelict", a photo of an abandoned, old partially demolitioned house may get low ratings for it being off-center and badly exposed, but it might receive good votes for fitting with the contest.
This would also mean that votes are temporary and get deleted after the challenge is complete, but can't be changed and ratings are permanent but can be changed or withdrawn at any time. Challenges run for a specific time only and the vote you cast is set in stone (which will force you to think before voting — something you should do in reality as well…), but your opinion of a photo expressed as the rating may change over time.
Both features will probably share most of their code, so it shouldn't be too much additional work.
Oh, and it would probably be best if one can only vote in a challenge if you have at least entered one photo yourself.

You're slowly having me come around to competitions -- but each would seem to be better left self-organized; could this be something to work as a part of photogroups?

Could actually be pretty cool as a feature: 23hq.com/challenge -- to set up a photo competition or challenge with given parameter and an easy way for people to participate. Nice.

I've posted a quick mockup design of how the page could look. It's marked as private to not attract too much coverage…

I don't mind having something akin to a themed challenge, though I also have reservations about turning anything at 23 into a contest. Part of the problem is that no matter how good or bad the photo, it can tend toward being simply a popularity contest.

It doesn't have to be, of course.

If we do do this sort of thing, perhaps make sure we stress the "challenge" aspect. Like the 10x10 or 100 Snapshots challenges people try out, perhaps make it more about seeing the world in a different way, and sharing that vision. That is, we stress that the challenges are about unique, interesting or surprising interpretations of a general subject or situation.

This way, we won't get the same "beautiful sunset" or "over processed portrait" looks that such contests tend to reward. (And, let me just say I'm not calling anyone out here; in fact, I'm guilty as charged for my own derivative photography.)

But, if we can find a way for folks to "curate" photos to enhance and build on the sharing aspect, this would be great. It doesn't have to be about the front page, either. I think we should consider how to allow curators to elevate any sort of interesting collection so that I am more likely to see it.

I have no concrete ideas on how to do that specifically, but the challenge here is slicing through all the data using some finite criteria and finding the gems. We ought to be able to crowd-source /something/ along those lines...?

It seems most of us agree that [1] an attractive, ever-changing front page and [2] a gentle, yet stimulating challenge feature are the way to go -- at least as a first step, just to stir things up. I'd love to take a look at those mock-ups you guys have been working on. nachbarnebenan? pregnantboy?

And I most definitely vote to keep 23 to be as separate from Facebook and Flickr as possible. We are so much cooler than them, obviously!

Don't know the name for that kind of gallery/collage, but I find http://cubbi.es/ quite nice

So, it's been a really long time coming -- but we've been moving on implementing some of these ideas in this post:
- I have posted a draft for a new front page design at http://www.23hq.com/steffen/photo/7175319. As you can see, we want to feature more and bigger photos on our new front page -- and we want you guys to help us in choosing stuff.
- We are recruiting a small crowd of Team 23 people. These beautiful people will be able to promote any favorite (of other people's photos) to the front page -- along with a short note.
- Promoted photos will also be included on the Just In page and in the footer.
- As you can see, we are also considering a few design tweaks to the header and navigation.

As in

I like this design, it's well organized and not too cluttered. However, I pity the poor souls having to choose the images…
A small idea: the three small images could rotate, after some time like 2 or 4h, the oldest of the images gets replaced with a new one from the selected list. The big photo should only change every 24 or maybe 48h.

Daniel, I'm with you here. As showcasing photos is concerned, keeping everything else clean is essential. Let the photos shine by themselves.

Steffen wrote: "Any inspiration for who's doing flow photo blogging well -- both in terms of curating and design?"

I recently began participating in Google+ "Daily Photographic Themes." Several themes available for each day of the week, and each has one or more curators. You upload a photo, tag it with the name of the theme, and hope it gets curated onto the theme page.